Doctoral Requirements 

• All students must complete a minimum of 90 graduate credit hours with at least 30 credit hours of didactic course work. A minimum grade point average of 3.0 is required.
• Qualifying Examination: After approval of a pre-proposal is granted by the Qualifying Exam Committee, a full proposal (formatted as a NIH predoctoral grant application) will be submitted to the qualifying exam committee. The doctoral candidate will subsequently provide a presentation of the proposal to the committee during which time questions about the proposal raised by committee members, including methodology and neuroscientific principles, will be addressed by the doctoral candidate.
• At least one first-author, peer-reviewed journal article published or in press is required.
• Dissertation Submittal and Defense: A final dissertation based on research performed will be submitted to the candidate's chosen Dissertation Committee consistent with the guidelines published in the NGP Handbook. The seminar-style dissertation defense will be conducted in public with questions and comments welcomed from the audience. After the public portion, the Dissertation Committee will conduct a closed examination. Following approval of 4/5 of the Dissertation Committee, recommendation to confer the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Neuroscience will be submitted to the Graduate School.

Requirement for the MD/PhD Degree are the same, although timeline and some coursework taken as part of the Medical Scientist Training Program may substitute for non-core Neuroscience coursework as described in the NGP Handbook.